Hall, Megan. “Artful Biology Projects.” The Science Teacher. January 2005: 26-29.
The main focus of the article is to increase student’s sense of confidence in the classroom by integrating other strengths that they have and apply them to science. The goal is to increase the comfort level in the science field, which is often intimidating to students. It is also important to note that this article is written by a teacher of an alternative arts high school. Although the public schools that we will be teaching in are certainly not “alternative arts” school, I think her ideas are interesting and can be applied. Megan Hall had her students complete a Multiple Intelligences Survey before they received their assignments for their unit on immunology. Depending on their results of the survey, they got different assignments. For example, the bodily/kinesthetic learner could choose between performing a skit and creating a model while the logical/mathematical learner had to invent a puzzle or game. The students got their individual assignments based on the results of their survey that acknowledged their strengths as learners. The scoring rubric focused on the topics and material that needed to be in their project rather then the specific projects because of the variety within the class. Overall, there was a positive response from the students, who were able to use their strengths to demonstrate their understanding of science. A similar project was done during an evolution unit, where she instructed her students to incorporate two main areas of classroom study into a piece of artwork. She made her classroom into an art studio and the students used whatever supplies they wanted to produce short stories, world maps, musical lyrics, and paintings. The assessment for this project addressed some questions that they answered in addition to their work, and how well the two topics were addressed through their art. Her students showed great improvement in the science field and demonstrated deep understanding of the topics. By focusing on the specific learning styles of her students, she was able to target their best talents and apply them to science.
Reaction:
As a teacher, it is a constant goal to target students of all different learning styles. This article had some great ideas about adapting science teaching and assessment to fit multiple learning styles at one time. It is important to adapt assessment and learning to the different levels and learners in the class and often this is difficult. I think that a good assessment would be to have the students pick from a list of choices of projects that they would complete. The projects should be equal as far a workload and expectations of content knowledge being presented. This is similar to what Megan Hall did with her class, but in a public school, we could not have purely artistic, musical, creative choices. We would have to add in some project choices such as designing a lab experiment to prove evolution, researching the background of immunology, etc. Overall, the article was interesting and brought up a lot of good ideas about assessing students of different learning styles.
The main focus of the article is to increase student’s sense of confidence in the classroom by integrating other strengths that they have and apply them to science. The goal is to increase the comfort level in the science field, which is often intimidating to students. It is also important to note that this article is written by a teacher of an alternative arts high school. Although the public schools that we will be teaching in are certainly not “alternative arts” school, I think her ideas are interesting and can be applied. Megan Hall had her students complete a Multiple Intelligences Survey before they received their assignments for their unit on immunology. Depending on their results of the survey, they got different assignments. For example, the bodily/kinesthetic learner could choose between performing a skit and creating a model while the logical/mathematical learner had to invent a puzzle or game. The students got their individual assignments based on the results of their survey that acknowledged their strengths as learners. The scoring rubric focused on the topics and material that needed to be in their project rather then the specific projects because of the variety within the class. Overall, there was a positive response from the students, who were able to use their strengths to demonstrate their understanding of science. A similar project was done during an evolution unit, where she instructed her students to incorporate two main areas of classroom study into a piece of artwork. She made her classroom into an art studio and the students used whatever supplies they wanted to produce short stories, world maps, musical lyrics, and paintings. The assessment for this project addressed some questions that they answered in addition to their work, and how well the two topics were addressed through their art. Her students showed great improvement in the science field and demonstrated deep understanding of the topics. By focusing on the specific learning styles of her students, she was able to target their best talents and apply them to science.
Reaction:
As a teacher, it is a constant goal to target students of all different learning styles. This article had some great ideas about adapting science teaching and assessment to fit multiple learning styles at one time. It is important to adapt assessment and learning to the different levels and learners in the class and often this is difficult. I think that a good assessment would be to have the students pick from a list of choices of projects that they would complete. The projects should be equal as far a workload and expectations of content knowledge being presented. This is similar to what Megan Hall did with her class, but in a public school, we could not have purely artistic, musical, creative choices. We would have to add in some project choices such as designing a lab experiment to prove evolution, researching the background of immunology, etc. Overall, the article was interesting and brought up a lot of good ideas about assessing students of different learning styles.
Beth M.